thoughts

Didn't realise I've not posted here for 2 weeks already.

Was busy at work...

Was busy for the last week as well because Peanut fell sick big time.
Had to take halfday childcare leave on 3 separate days...

Can't quite recall what else I was busy with also lol.

Other thoughts occupying my mind include my role in my workplace and how should/could/would I be able to tweak it so that :-
(i) I can make myself more relevant to the company and play a more important role
(ii) I can develop myself abit more
(iii) I can guarantee a few more years of career here...

For all the planning and organising that I do in my daily activities...(and those who know me well know the amount of detail that goes into it at times...)
The big irony is that I suck at planning my own life and career...I really suck at it.

I'm 37 this year. Either I take a bolder move now or I remain stuck when I hit the big 4?

I don't know...sigh.

Windows to my Soul

When I was in my 20s, I used to wonder how long I would wear contact lenses for. 

The answer has come to me. 

I'm 37 this year. I've been wearing contacts lenses since I was 18. That's almost a good 20 years. 

I wore them on a daily basis, whenever I stepped out of the house. Unless it was to the neighbourhood shops to run errands. When I started working, I wore them almost 12 hours a day. Even longer if I headed out after work. And I wore them for even longer periods of time during days that I went clubbing or pubbing. Not that those days were many. 

In the last 3 years, since Nadya was born, I started wearing glasses out abit more than usual. When Alyssa came along, it was a given that I wore glasses on weekends. 

And alas, in recent months, my eyes started their protest. Maybe I've not been treating them well over the years....they cried foul when I wore contact lenses. They grew tired and weary of contact lenses and sometimes even if I wore glasses, they'd give me a tough time too. It was almost as if they were telling me "you have worked us hard for so many years....please let us rest more now..." 

So yeah. 

I've been wearing glasses to work for several weeks now. At least 2 months actually...contact lenses are now reserved for special occassions like CNY or Xmas or when I have events where I have to meet many people....

Other than that...glasses seem to be the way to go already...

I was told by the eye doctor previously......."You are young but your eyes are old."

Well, my eyes are older than they should be due to my high myopia. 

Born with them. Myopia runs in the family. 

Though I am the only one afflicted with very high myopia. 

Bopian. Sigh.

Friend?? I guess not.

And so I did it again. (I shouldn't have actually but no harm trying right?)

I approached someone online whom I considered a friend. Even though he went MIA for a long time. I IM-ed a "hi".

Met with a closed door on my face. He went offline.

Ok, point taken. You do not want to have anything to do with me anymore.

But I hope you do remember how I helped you out a little when you were down in the dumps. I need not have loaned you that $1,000 but I still did. You asked for $2,000 or $3,000. I gave you partial of that amount. You got your ass burned badly and dragged down your entire family. It was something I found out later through our mutual friend. I hope you learned your lesson and I hope you picked yourself up after that.

But if this is how you burn bridges.....alright....so be it.

p/s: I approached you not because I wanted to ask you to return the money. I've already written it off as a bad debt 8-9 years ago.

Granny

Yesterday, 7th February, was Granny's birthday.

Happy birthday Granny!

I hope you had fun up there with Ipoh, Tuanku, Uncle Benny and now Uncle Bobby....
Were there popiah and buah keluak? Or telur geragau. Or bubur chacha. Or nasi kuning? Or ikan assam? Or......

I miss you...

Mortality

As we grow older, as our parents grow older and as our relatives grow older, mortality and its finite nature looms more and more into view.

We gather on festive occasions. We try to get-together on some other days as well. With each gathering, the human spirit seems to sense that days are slowly but surely getting numbered.

Gatherings between the older generation relatives are still spritely and gay, though sometimes, you can sense the darker and more sombre undertones. When the female aunts and your mother sit together and talk in softer tones in a corner, about falls and fractured wrists, operations and kidney tumours, about high blood pressure and bad joints, high cholesterol and diabetes. When the uncles and your father sit together at a table, playing blackjack and sipping wine and you see your father politely decline a second can of beer and another glass of wine because you know, too much alcohol in your 70s is probably not a good thing.

You start to realise too. That the elders who seemed to be strong and proud superheroes when you were a wee child are now still your superheroes. Just that they've lost weight and don't stand as tall as they used to before. That they are just that little bit more hunched over, with more wrinkles and weathered smiles. That maybe some of them are wearing glasses now when they didn't use to before. But their hearts and spirits are still the same. And that's what's important.

We celebrate new births and see the new generation grow bigger day by day. Sometimes, we tend to forget that the elder folks are doing that too. Growing older day by day.

Just received news last evening of a distant uncle who passed on. I last saw him several years back. While we were not close, news of his death still brought me some amount of sadness. He was young by my standards. 70 only. Taken away by cancer. His older brother, whom I liked alot when I was a child, was taken away by lung cancer maybe almost 10 years ago. Both were heavy smokers.

I hope Dad and Ahgor are ok. They are both older and are attending his wake this afternoon. They were cousins who played together in the same house when they were kids. I should give Dad a call this evening....

Rest in peace Uncle Bobby.
You can now start playing mahjong with Gu-gong, Ipoh, Uncle Benny and Mama.

jiayou!

I've not been very productive at work since December. It's the Xmas + CNY festivities...and the general holiday mood that's permeating the air.

I do some work...and then I take a break...and the cycle repeats.

Li chun is typically on 4 Feb. That means the change in Zodiac from Monkey to Rooster only happens then.

I hope the Rooster Year brings me better and more positive energies.

jiayou!

CNY

It's been a hectic 2 weeks. With a mad rush for CNY preparations. Not that I had to prepare alot of things though. But still the minimum of needing to clear up some junk for the house, getting some nice things for the in-laws, getting the angpows ready, making sure there are oranges at home, etc.

And so CNY day 1 & day 2 came and went already.....So fast!
I think Alyssa enjoyed herself somewhat. She got to go visiting and explored new places. She had the chance to see some dogs too.

Nadya had a fall on day 1 and sustained some cuts and bruises that got me quite flustered and upset. She had a deep cut inside her lower lip and had a big patch of scratches on her chin area below her lower lip. She cried badly and my heart got kinda scrunched up for the entire day after that...:(

It's CNY day 4 already and I'm glad to see that youth is really on her side and her wounds are healing faster that I expected.

Food. I was a glutton. Ate many snacks non-stop....and erm...sustained a cough and sore throat by the time day 1 evening came lol.

It was a so-so CNY. Nothing out of the ordinary...nothing very exciting.

I've yet to count the angpows the girls received. Maybe I;ll only do that at the end of CNY.
I've yet to count those me and K received too...:) Yes, even though we are adults...we still receive some angpows from some relatives and our parents. The Cantonese still do give out angpows to married couples....so long as you are younger than them I think....